Spencer Lee is a two-time Junior World champion wrestler and a Cadet champion who is considered one of the top pound-for-pound high school wrestlers in the nation. Lee, from Franklin Regional (Murrysville, Pa.) is a two-time American Family Insurance ALL-USA selection who is attempting to join an elite club of four-time undefeated state champions. As he readies for the championship portion of the season, Lee has agreed to give USA TODAY High School Sports access into his world.
Welcome to my blog. I wanted to provide a little insight into how an elite wrestler lives his life.
Wrestling is different than other sports. When you go into practice, you weigh in and say, I want to lose X amount of weight in practice. In other sports you say, what can I work on today to get better? In wrestling, you have things to work on to get better, but we have that extra dynamic of having to watch our weight that many other sports don’t have, so there’s an added component of weight discipline as well as working hard to get better.
As in other sports, there’s always the little injuries you get — especially half way through a season. In wrestling if you get banged up or hurt during a match, you just have to wrestle through them. It’s not like someone else can come off the bench — it’s just you and the other guy and that’s why I love wrestling so much.
Six minutes seems like a short amount of time compared to other sports with longer games. It’s amazing how tired you can make an opponent in what is six short minutes to me, but I love training and competing, so I wish the matches were longer and can’t wait to head to Iowa for college.
We have three weeks to individuals. I’ll be training as hard as I can so I can become the fifth four-time undefeated Pennsylvania state champion. I’ve loved growing up and wrestling in the state of Pennsylvania — it’s been awesome to be on all the PA teams growing. I find it hard to believe that high school is almost over. For all you young guys out there, enjoy each step of the journey. Everyone told me how fast it would go, but I didn’t believe them and now it’s almost over. They were right, it went by too fast. I can’t believe that I only have one more trip to Hershey as a high school athlete. It’s a great town, awesome venue and the fans are super.
As I approach the end of my high school career, I’m very thankful for all of the coaching I’ve had throughout high school. My Franklin and Young Guns coaches are awesome. My mom and dad have always been there for me and I hope I can be as good of a parent for my kids someday as they have been for me.
People often ask me what type of music I like or what type of hobbies I have, so here it goes … I actually like all kinds of music and it depends on the setting, but I don’t listen to music or anything before my matches. I don’t need anything to fire me up to go out and do what I love to do.
As far as hobbies and outside interests, I try to have as much of a social life as I can even though it’s hard with sports and school taking up so much time. I do enjoy reading, I like to play video games, hunting, archery, hanging out with friends and playing Pokémon.
Thanks for reading my first blog. Check back as I continue to try to win another state title. You can follow me on Twitter at @LeeSpencerLee36.
